Are You Revealing Too Much Online?

When Facebook changed its privacy policy (again!) this spring, it sparked a firestorm of outrage. Few users wanted their personal info shared with marketers and the entire Web. The site backtracked on many of the changes, but the concern remains: How much of your life should you live out loud online — and will it put you and your family at risk?

On any given night, you can post your toddler's cute quip to your Facebook page, upload pics of girls' night out to your Flickr account, and vent about how your hubby throws elbows in his sleep on your blog. With all that sharing, could you attract the attention of a would-be stalker or (cue maternal nausea) a kidnapper? Most likely, no. Reputable sources report zero child abductions caused by personal information posted on social networking sites. But in this exciting age of so much information and connectivity, openness does come with some risks: The more info you put out there, the more personal fodder you give to people you don't know and might not be able to trust. Use your husband's real name in your oversharing blog and his boss could reconsider that promotion. Mention your son's passion for Tonka trucks on Facebook and you'll start seeing ads from toy companies. Use less-than-secure passwords for your online banking and other sensitive sites and a clever hacker might be able to crack them.

Here, Braden Cox, policy counsel at NetChoice, and Paul Buta, author of Privacy Panic, fill you in on the precautions all of us need to take to protect ourselves online, and extra steps to take if you're privacy obsessed.

If you're a LIVE-LIFE-OUT-LOUD GIRL (i.e., you offer a play-by-play of your life to your 1,000 Facebook friends, blog readers, and Twitter followers), these are the guidelines you — and everyone — should follow:

On your social networking profiles, take the time to check out the privacy settings and decide whom you want to have access to what information. The risks here aren't great, but do you really want your cousins to read about your sex life, or your frenemy to see photos of the party you didn't invite her to?

Seems obvious, but never make reference to or post photos that show you doing something illegal. And be careful with those cute pics of your kid in the buff: Baby pics are one thing, but if you post any as they get a little older, you could get charged with child pornography (seriously!).

Remove your birth year from your social networking profiles. It's okay to include the month and day, but your full birthday is a data point that banks often use to confirm your identity, and it's info you don't want to be readily available.

Make sure your computer's anti-spyware and antivirus protections are turned on, and protect your Internet connection with a password and a firewall, which blocks unauthorized access and is available on most computers. This will prevent hackers from tracking your Internet activity and stealing financial passwords (and then your money), or from hijacking your computer to send out spam emails that attack others' computers. Also, if you blog, stay up-to-date with your blog host's latest protection measures.

Sign up for online banking, which is much safer than paper banking (80 percent of identity theft is a result of stolen paper documents). Create robust passwords (at least eight characters, including some capital letters and numerals) that don't include any information about you that can be found online (like your dog's name or your favorite band), then check their strength at microsoft.com/password. Don't fall prey to "phishing" emails that seem to come from your bank and ask you to confirm your username and password--this is one way online thieves steal identities.

If you're on a public wireless network, like at Starbucks, don't do your online banking or log on to other sites that contain sensitive information about you. Other users accessing the network might be able to access it.

Teach your kids about the risks of sharing personal information on the Web. If it feels appropriate for your child, bring up the countless cases of tweens' and teens' personal photos and videos that have ended up in the wrong inboxes because of how easy it is to forward email. Have a conversation about what sites they're visiting online, and make sure they're staying safe by signing up for a free limiting service such as AOL Parental Controls, which allows you to log in and monitor their activity. Check with your wireless carrier for similar services on your kids' phones, too.

Before you post anything online — whether it's a status update or a comment on YouTube — ask yourself these questions: Would I tell this to a random person at a party — or my mom? What am I getting out of sharing this? Does what I'm about to write show the "me" I want to be?

If you're an EASYGOING SURFER CHICK (i.e., you post status updates and photos to Facebook but you limit their access to just your friends; you've tried your hand at blogging or tweeting), do all of the above, plus the following:

For peace of mind, take control of what you're sharing. On Facebook, you can create custom lists that limit how much you share with different people, and on Twitter, you can adjust your settings to approve followers. Most other social networks offer ways to limit sharing too.

Know that when you post a message or update to someone else's Facebook wall who doesn't have the same privacy settings as you, it could be exposed, so don't share a phone number or other personal information there.

If you're wary of marketers getting information about your interests in order to target you to sell you things, don't "Like" sites and groups on Facebook. If you don't want targeted ads appearing alongside your email, switch to Hushmail, which encrypts messages so that only the sender and receiver can access them.

If you're a FLY-UNDER-THE-RADAR GIRL (i.e., you might not be on Facebook but you worry that friends are posting photos of you; you're horrified at the idea that your high school boyfriend could Google you and find details about your life), take all of the above precautions as well as the ones below:

Read and make sure you understand the privacy policies on every site where you provide information about yourself. Pay attention to how the site collects your data, how it uses it, and with whom it shares it that info (marketers only, for example, or everyone on the Web) — and make sure you're comfortable with it.

To share photos with your friends and family, create an album on a private, password-protected site, like kodakgallery.com.

In order to keep tabs on where you're appearing online, set up a Google alert for your name by filling out the form at google.com/alerts. If you see something you're not comfortable with, click on the website's privacy policy to find out if you can have it removed.

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